As some of you may know, I recently returned from a month-long research trip to Europe. What you may not know is that I decided to travel as light as possible. In practical terms, this means the unthinkable: no books*! For someone who used to travel with no fewer than…
Yes, as promised, a review of the musical sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, which sees former star soprano Christine Daae travelling with her husband and child to Coney Island, NYC, to stage a comeback at a mysterious sideshow called Phantasma. (gasp! Could it be….?) But,…
(Thanks to all who’ve expressed their sympathies! Your kind wishes mean a lot to me.) A while back, I wrote this blog entry about a certain love-triangle pattern often encountered in fiction, and I talked a bit about why I’m frustrated by the place it leaves for the women ostensibly…
The older I get, the less I find myself impressed by comedic movies and plays. Maybe I’m prematurely an old fogey, but everything seems… derivative. Tired. Worn out. I notice that I turn more and more to the game-changers, the household-name originals like classic Looney Toons, Monty Python, and Terry…
(See? See what I did there?) I’m blogging today about three works that made me think a bit more about how expectations and knowledge can affect the way I experience stories. Yeah, you’ve been warned.
Welcome to my mix of public thanks, travelogue, and short reviews. The joy of the Internet is, there’s still time to click “back” on your browsers. Going… going… gone. So, first: THANK YOU to all who joined us for our awesome Stratford adventure, but particularly to our generous drivers, Juliana…
Normally, I don’t do two entries of short reviews in a row, but this first one is the reason.
But first… (teaser beneath the cut):
Confession time: my knee-jerk reaction upon hearing a piece of literature, a movie, a play, or another work of art* is “Canadian” is to run for the hills. Sure, I like Anne of Green Gables and Robertson Davies as much as the next Canuck, but I’ve been served far too…
The first thing you learn when you’re a drama major is that people consider your field the lowest branch of academia. “Even” a drama student would know this; or seriously? Where do you plan to work with that degree – McDonald’s? But as any drama student who cares can tell…